In Singapore again!

Hey just here ready to leave the airport and taking advantage of the free internet.  We had a really great zone leader council and a lot got accomplished.  It is great to be in the fray of making mission policy and helping things happen.  Well, I had my subway and I’m ready to sleep in my own bed... which is actually less comfortable than the one I slept in last night, but still.  I’m one of the senior zone leaders so my voice is heard and taken into account a lot of the time, so that is nice.  There are a couple of young zone leaders that don’t talk to just don’t have anything useful to say. My group is a pivotal group in the mission and with us leaving the mission will lose some of the best teachers, language speakers and personalities.  We had a long discussion in the council about how the younger missionaries are really bad teachers and we talked about how we could help them improve their teaching skills and help them learn the language.

I go back to Singapore next week, then that same week I go to Tawau, and then the following week I go to Sandakan, and then the following week go back to Tawau, then go to Singapore the following week and then just keep on doing that cycle.  It makes it really difficult to teach people because we are never in our area.  And when we are in our area we have responsibilities that take us away from our own area.

Anyway, things are going great, love to hear from you guys on how things are going in Arlington.  It looks as though I will be flying into the Reagan airport, so just a heads up.  It’s not going to be that much longer!  I am having so much fun in my new area that I am more sad about my mission ending that I would have had I died in Miri.

Well, I got my stitches taken out and now the scar is in the healing process, it is possible that you will not even see a scar when I get home!

Love you guys!

New Year!

It’s almost the new year, and that means it’s time for us to reflect upon what we have achieved and accomplished in 2012.  It has been quite the year, the only year that I have ever completely dedicated 100% of the year to missionary work.  What a blessing that has been and will be as I finish my mission this upcoming year.  In this last year I have had only 3 areas meaning I have had such great opportunity to get close to the members of each of the 3 branches I have gotten to serve in.  It’s kind of crazy to think that in my entire 19 months of my mission I have only had 4 areas!  Each one has been so special and so rich in memories that I have no complaints or regrets.  Every time I get on a plane or a bus it hits me again and again, "I’m on Borneo, in Malaysia, and I’m a missionary!"  I have counted the number of plane rides I have taken on my mission and the number of long distant bus rides I have taken.  As of the end of 2012 I have taken 43 plane rides and 21 bus rides and entered Singapore 9 times.  I have eaten strange animals and animal parts (chicken butt anyone?).  I have lived next to the ocean.  I have sweated more and felt hotter than I ever have in my entire life.  So, when it comes to living life, it has been the best.  But more importantly, I have made lifelong friends that cannot be forgotten.  I have shared the gospel and watched it work (like magic) in the lives of countless people.  It has solidified my testimony that we are all sons and daughters of God.  We all share a divine potential to have eternal families and eternal like in the life to come.

I hope we all had a great year and will continue to make each year meaningful and positive! Happy New Year

Singapore Zoo

So this week was an adventurous one, lots of fun things.  It marked my 7th Singapore trip and by far the best one yet.  This time around we had a lot of free time to go and do whatever.  So a few of us thought it would be fun to go to the Singapore Zoo!  The Singapore zoo is the number 1 ranked zoo in the world and it has a Night Safari attraction, which is the only one of its kind in the world.  The night safari displays the hundreds of different animals that are nocturnal and can normally not be seen at a regular zoo.  The safari opened at 6:30, right before it gets dark.  It was so great!  At the entrance there is this fish tank full of little fish that eat the dead skin off your feet.  It tickles so bad, and takes all your concentration not to pull your feet out of the water.  The feeling is indescribable and very memorable.  After that there was a fire breathing show with some dancing, very interesting and impressive how big they can make the flames.  After that there are a dozen or so trails that you can take in addition to a tram that will take you around the whole park.  I wish we had more time to see everything, but the stuff we were able to see was great!  My favorites had to be the flying squirrel, the jungle cats exhibit, and the wolves!

This trip also marked a significant milestone in my mission, I finally had sushi!  It has almost a year and a half since I have had raw fish, and let me tell you, it was soooooooo good.  I don't trust Malaysia to make me sushi so I waited until Singapore.  And this time around I actually had time to go and eat it!

Included with the blog post are pictures, one of which has me wearing my fanny pack!

Love you guys so much, do something worthwhile, and make sure you are having fun doing it!

Day 1

Day 1, July 27 So we arrived in Singapore about noon and we got moving straight away, no time for resting!  We got our baggage and loaded it into the vans that took it to the hotel we would be staying at.  Then we all took the subway to Little India where we ate a meal that was way too big for me.  The pictures posted show you that it was eaten with hands and it was amazing!  Absolutely delicious, and I guess I will be eating this kind of stuff a lot!  After that they took us out and had us start contacting people!  I was surprised, plus they filmed us doing it!  So in the near future that should be a video sent to my parents that show how hard it is to talk to random people on the street.  Basically the rest of the night was house keeping things.  I was so tired by the end of that day but so excited because it was then that I met my Companion and I found out where I was going to be going for my first assignment.  And the place I will be is... Sandakan!  It is in East Malaysia on the northern most tip of the Borneo island!  Because I would be going to the Borneo island I had to ditch half of all my stuff and begin the life of a minimalist!

The next day was crazy.  It started out normal and then it just got crazy.  We had an orientation until about 4 in the afternoon.  It was good, stuff about how to be a better missionary and stuff like that.  Anyway, it’s about 5 and the travel people tell my companion and I that we are flying out of Singapore in two hours to get to KL!  So we rush to the airport, make it there just in time for our flight.  They didn't even give us a place to stay, so we called up some of the missionaries in KL and stayed there for a night.  The place was so trashy, someone needed to do some cleaning.  The upside of that was the amazing view from their place!  The Patronous Towers were right there, absolutely beautiful!  Anyway we get like 5 hours of sleep and then wake up really early to catch a flight to Sandakan.  The flight was about 2.5 hours and the food served on the flight was absolutely disgusting!  Anyway we get to Sandakan and the airport is pitiful. For a town of 400K people there were only like three places for airplanes to dock.  I was shocked but then I remembered, the people here are really poor. 

So we get our luggage and then walk a little bit to the side of the road where we get on the bus which is quite a piece.  They keep the door open all the time, all the windows are open, no AC and all the buses in town are about 30 years outdated.  They are however very reliable and very fast... scary how people drive here.

We are driving and driving and finally get to the house.  I have to say my first impression was this is it?  Later, after visiting with some of the people that live in Sandakan I have realized that where we live is like a royal palace.  (more on that later)  The house is 2 stories and has air conditioning in just 2 of the rooms.  Which makes the rest of the house practically uninhabitable!  We spend most of our time in the two rooms, bedroom and study room.

Well, I thought that I would get a chance to get settled and comfortable but as soon as I finished unpacking we went out and visited with people.  The first place we visited was a shack in the middle of the jungle.  They are the Ning family, they are some of the nicest people I have ever met in my entire life!  They live so humbly.  The floors are dirt and there was even a birds nest in their house.  They served us juice and cookies.  I think the people in Malaysia are going to make this two years amazing.  The next place we went to was a Compong.  This is quite possibly the most trashy place in all of Sandakan.  The people live in these wooden huts that are on stilts so that when high tide comes their houses won’t be swept away.  They throw their garbage on the ground and as a result the place smells like a dump and looks worse than it has to be.  They have no plumbing and you can tell, both smell and sight!  The stilted houses are connected by bridges that are less than comforting... I almost fell into the swampy sewage water!  Now, not all of the places are like this but I will say, I have yet to visit a house with air conditioning and I have yet to visit a house that owns a car.

Oh yea.. an before I forget, it is HOTTTTTT!! I can’t say this will enough energy and hatred.  It is like 100 percent humidity and about 90 degrees and that doesn't change...EVER that only change in the weather will be the flood season which comes in November and February!  I leave the house and almost immediately I am sweating and  am gross.  I am never dry until later in the night where I finally get to shower.  Showering has never felt so good in my life!

And, I have had my first casualties.  My arms have about 4 mosquito bites each, no matter what i do to keep them safe.  My blood is too sweet and too delicious.  I cant help it.